Big shoes to fill: Famous Dances theme on ‘Dancing With The Stars’

SAN DIEGO, April 24, 2016 – The hot mess of the Switch Up week is safely behind the nine competing couples on “Dancing With The Stars.” Producers made a smart move deciding not to eliminate anyone. But there will be no reprieve this week. Someone is going home.

The elimination will be based on judges scores and fan votes from both the Switch Up week and Disney Week performances.

It won’t be Nyle DiMarco, Wanya Morris, Paige VanZant, or Ginger Zee. They’ve been safely at the top or at least the top half of the leaderboard. It means the remaining competitors really need to bring it: Von Miller, Antonio Brown, Doug Flutie, Jodie Sweetin and Kim Fields.

Can Doug Flutie master Bollywood style this week? Photo: ABC

So far, Doug Flutie’s fans have kept him on the show even though he’s been at or near the very bottom of the leaderboard. His two fellow NFL players have been right there with him, which is the big surprise of the season. The show’s two TV sitcom starts of the past have been a lot more successful, but they’re still having their ups and downs.

The assignments this week will help some of these stars and possibly hurt others. Monday we will see four Jazz routines, two Jive routines, plus Quickstep, Contemporary and – Bollywood, which comes up very rarely on the show.

Wouldn’t you know, Doug Flutie and Karina Smirnoff drew the Bollywood routine. Not only is it a difficult style to master with deep knees and complicated hand movements, every other couple has a fairly straightforward dance style. But the fans love Doug and will reward a good effort delivered with good humor. But really, is there no other Bollywood song in American than “Jai Ho” from the movie Slumdog Millionaire?

Antonio Brown needs to put in some work time with his regular partner Sharna Burgess to escape elimination this week. Photo: ABC/Adam Taylor

Ginger Zee is performing well and has the entire ABC and “Good Morning America” machine behind her. This week, she needs to channel her inner Miss Jackson dancing to “Nasty.” Does Ginger even know the meaning of the word nasty? She’ll need Val to be nasty for both of them.

Nyle DiMarco drew an iconic dance from DWTS history itself: “Hey Pachuco,” which has produced not one but two memorable Quicksteps by Julianne Hough and Helio Castroneves, and Shawn Johnson and Derek Hough.

The Julianne/Helio version is one of the best dances ever performed on all 22 seasons. Peta Murgatroyd has a pretty big challenge on her hands.

Join our live chat and we can relive our fond memories of the original dances while we critique the new versions. Chat begins with the first dance at 9:00 p.m. et

The assignments in alphabetical order are:

Antonio and Sharna: Jive, “Footloose” from the movie “Footloose”
Doug and Karina: Bollywood, “Jai Ho” from the movie “Slumdog Mllionaire”
Ginger and Val: Jazz, “Nasty” from the Janet Jackson music video
Jodie and Keo: Contemporary, “Try” from the Pink music video
Kim and Sasha: Jive, “You Can’t Stop The Beat” from the Broadway musical “Hairspray”
Nyle and Peta: Quickstep, “Hey Pachuco” from the movie “The Mask”
Paige and Mark: Jazz: “Soul Bossa Nova” from the movie “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery”
Von and Witney: Jazz, “Bad” from the Michael Jackson music video
Wanyá and Lindsay: Jazz, “Bye Bye Bye” from NSYNC’s Video Music Awards performance

As a reminder, here’s your Week 5 leaderboard, with the difference from the previous week’s scores in parentheses:

“Dancing With the Stars” returns for Week 6 on Monday, April 25 at 8 p.m. Eastern/Pacific Time on the ABC Television Network.

Voting information: Viewers may cast their votes for their favorite couples via phone on Monday nights during the show and up to one hour after the end of the DWTS broadcast in each time zone. Online voting at www.ABC.com and on Facebook at https://apps.facebook.com/votedwts/ is open for 24 hours, beginning from the start of each episode on the East Coast at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT and closing at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on Tuesday evenings.

Gayle Lynn Falkenthal, APR, is President/Owner of the Falcon Valley Group in San Diego, California. She is also a serious boxing fan covering the Sweet Science for Communities. Read more Media Migraine in Communities Digital News. Follow Gayle on Facebook and on Twitter @PRProSanDiego. Gayle can be reached via Google +

Please credit “Gayle Falkenthal for Communities Digital News” when quoting from or linking to this story.

Gayle Lynn Falkenthal, MS, APR, is President of the Falcon Valley Group, a San Diego based communications consulting firm. Falkenthal is a veteran award-winning broadcast and print journalist, editor, producer, talk host and commentator. She is an instructor at National University in San Diego, and previously taught in the School of Journalism & Media Studies at San Diego State University.